Twelve states are suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for forcing them to discriminate against transgender people.

On Tuesday, the attorneys general of New York, Rhode Island, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Vermont, and Washington joined Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) in a lawsuit challenging HHS’s “conditioning [of] hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding on states’ agreement to discriminate against transgender people,” according to a press release from the Oregon Department of Justice.

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“Under a new HHS policy, recipients of federal health, education, and research funding must certify compliance with a presidential executive order that seeks to deny the existence of transgender people and impose rigid, unscientific definitions of sex,” the press release states.

On January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” In addition to declaring that the U.S. would only recognize two sexes (male and female) based on the size of an individual’s reproductive cells, the order also instructs federal agencies to “assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant funds do not promote [so-called] gender ideology” — among many other anti-trans directives.

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In October, HHS released an update to its Grants Policy Statement. The updated policy statement included requirements that grant recipients comply with the administration’s interpretation of Title IX as excluding discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and that they certify that they comply with EO 14168.

In their lawsuit, the 12 state attorneys general describe Trump’s “Gender Ideology EO [executive order]” as a “critical component of the Administration’s ongoing campaign targeting transgender youth and adults…for discrimination.”

The complaint asserts that HHS’s efforts to implement the order’s directives violate the U.S. Constitution “by overriding Congress’ power of the purse,” that the new policy “breaks federal law by attaching vague and retroactive conditions to funding, and violates the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing a major policy change without notice or explanation,” according to the Oregon DOJ.

“The policy also contradicts decades of court opinions and settled federal guidance recognizing that Title IX protects people from discrimination based on gender identity,” and conflicts with “state laws intended to protect the rights and dignity of transgender residents in Plaintiff States, in violation of Plaintiffs’ sovereign authority.”

Additionally, the complaint notes that “HHS continues to condition federal grant funding despite orders from three courts enjoining and vacating it as unlawful.”

Collectively, the 12 states risk losing more than $300 billion in federal grant funding for health, education, and research, according to the lawsuit.

“Oregon has worked hard to expand access to medical choice and make sure everyone can get the care they need,” Oregon Attorney General Rayfield said in a statement. “This policy uses federal money to interfere with deeply personal medical decisions that belong to patients, families, and their doctors. Agencies shouldn’t be forced to take care away from people just to keep their funding.”

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